


Storybook Ending (But Not Nearly As Sweet)

by CWMaddy



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, No Dialogue, That Scene but it didn't end well, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 03:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11797536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWMaddy/pseuds/CWMaddy
Summary: If this had been like a storybook ending, the bad guy wouldn't have gotten away with it.But this wasn't a storybook. This was reality.And in reality, Peter Parker was dead.





	Storybook Ending (But Not Nearly As Sweet)

Somewhere, in another world, things might've ended differently.

Somewhere, hopefully, things didn't turn out so tragic. 

If this had been like a storybook ending, the bad guy wouldn't have gotten away with it. 

But this wasn't a storybook. This was reality. 

And in reality, Peter Parker was dead.

 

In the aftermath, people would react in different ways. May would identify her nephew's body in the morgue, and she'd grieve over the last thing she'd had in this cruel, uncaring world. Tony would mentally add another person to the list of people he'd failed. Ned and Michelle-call-me-MJ would sit silently at lunch, waiting up for someone that would never show. Flash would be less proud of his place on the decathlon team than he maybe would've been in other circumstances. 

Liz would wish that she had said something to Peter before he left her on homecoming night, alone on the dance floor. Maybe she could've convinced him to stay. She would cry in her father's arms over her sort-of-not-really-but-could've-been boyfriend, and Adrian Toomes would briefly wonder if he had truly done the right thing. 

The news would cover the disheartening story of an innocent teenage boy caught up in a structural mishap of a warehouse just on the outskirts of Queens, and how he ended up paying the ultimate price. How tons of concrete might have broken his bones, but it was a metal pipe to the abdomen that resulted in the fatal outcome. 

Midtown Tech would have a memorial assembly in the gym the following week, and while several cried, few actually knew who Peter Parker was. Even fewer knew who he could've been. 

An Avenger, at most. At _least_ , a boy with a future. Peter didn't have the chance to fall in love, or to graduate, or to grow up and into those shoes of Ben's that he'd worn around the apartment as a child, despite them being several sizes too large. 

Peter would end up being buried next to the rest of his family, and just like them, he'd be following the Parker tradition of dying much too soon for anyone's liking. After his funeral (a small gathering of his aunt, Ned, Tony, Happy, and the decathlon team), May would return home to an all too silent apartment. She wouldn't turn on the lights, but she would sob over the makeshift Spider-Man mask that Mr. Stark had given her earlier that day at the cemetery. 

The construction team that he'd hired to clear away the fallen warehouse had found it in the debris. It was what had led them to finding the body. _His_ body. 

The sale of illegal high tech weapons would continue to increase, as would crime in general around the city, for the witty hero in red and blue was no longer anywhere to be found. 

Tony Stark's moving day plane would never be recovered. A spider themed suit that he'd designed for a specific boy would remain in its case, deactivated and left to collect dust in a dark corner of his workroom. 

The school year would end. Liz Allan would graduate from Midtown. MJ would be appointed as the new decathlon president. And a new spider-like hero would rise to protect Queens. 

The world would continue to turn, and the years would continue to pass. But if you were to ask anyone that had known Peter Parker, they'd tell you that even the sunniest days just weren't as bright as they used to be, not anymore. 

Not without him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. But at the same time, not sorry enough that I won't post it.


End file.
